October 8 – Head Start for Low Income Children Act to fund an initiative championed by President Obama passes the House. SENATE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO ACT!

Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth Working Group Act to conduct negotiations, resolve differences, re-open the government, and address the debt passes the House. SENATE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO ACT!

Federal Worker Pay Fairness Act to keep federal workers who are still on the job paid on-time unanimously passes the House. SENATE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO ACT!

The federal government shutdown is now in its 10th day. MN Senator Al Franken and his fellow Democrats in the Senate continue to refuse to work with Republicans. It’s time for the Democrats to get back to work. The #SenateMustAct to end the shutdown.

September 20 – House Republicans pass a bipartisan Continuing Resolution (230-189) to keep government running at current spending levels and defund the Affordable Care Act.SENATE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO ACT!

September 28 – House passes another Continuing Resolution to keep government open and avoid a shutdown. Republicans attempt to negotiate with Democrats and agree to delay implementation of Obamacare for 1 year. SENATE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO ACT!

September 30 – the House insists on a plan to fund government at current spending levels and pass Continuing Resolution that includes provision to ensure NO SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR CONGRESS under the president’s health care law. House Republicans request a formal House-Senate conference. SENATE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO ACT!

October 2 – Open our National Parks Act, to keep national monuments like the WWII memorial open, passes the House with bipartisan support (252-173). SENATE DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO ACT!

“Mr. Holder’s comments rankled gun-rights groups and other supporters of [Stand Your Ground] laws…. Erich Pratt, spokesman for the Gun Owners of America, said the attorney general ‘wants to take us back to the days where those who are under attack are forced to retreat.’” — Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2013

GOA Standing our Ground against assaults
by the Obama Administration

It was a good week for gun owners in many respects.

First, unless you were living in a cave the past few days, you have surely heard about the acquittal of George Zimmerman in Florida.

While this was certainly a tragic case, the jury followed the law and acquitted Zimmerman of second degree murder — in the case which has now become internationally famous.

Predictably, the Obama administration is using this case to demonize gun owners and attack Stand Your Ground laws around the country — laws which remove a person’s duty to retreat prior to using deadly force when facing “death or great bodily harm.”

GOA has fought to get these laws enacted in the past, and we will continue lobbying to keep them from being weakened or watered down.

As an aside, the Zimmerman defense team NEVER invoked “Stand Your Ground” as a defense. So all these attacks on Florida’s SYG law are simply disingenuous attempts to use a manufactured “crisis” to advance their left-wing agenda.

Nevertheless, Attorney GeneralEric Holder announced this week that he wants us to return to the dangerous doctrine that requires citizens to retreat before they can protect themselves.

This thinking comes from the same school of thought where college students in Colorado were recently told they must urinate or vomit on themselves to prevent rapists from attacking them.

In other words, people should think of every way possible to NOT use force in protecting themselves. Never mind that George Zimmerman couldn’t retreat because Trayvon Martin had him pinned down while beating his head into the cement.

GOA has called on Eric Holder to issue an apology to George Zimmerman and his family. The Justice Department used taxpayer dollars last year to organize protests against George Zimmerman — long before the trial ever occurred.

“We are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, and Lady Justice is supposed to be blind,” GOA’s Erich Pratt was quoted as saying in the Wall Street Journal.

Yes, justice is SUPPOSED to be blind. Sadly, the DOJ had its hand on the scales long before the Zimmerman trial even started.

Granted, this victory has come at a price, and many conservatives in Washington are saying that Senate Republicans “caved” in their dealings with Senator Harry Reid.

While there may be truth to that assertion, the facts are this:

* The time-honored right of Senators to filibuster has come under increasing attack, especially since pro-gun forces have used the Senate filibuster to defeat anti-gun judges (like Caitlin Halligan) and anti-gun legislation (like the Toomey-Manchin registration amendment).

* GOA worked with pro-gun Senators in January to beat back attempts by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to blow-up the filibuster rules, via the so-called “nuclear option.”

* Recently, Senator Harry Reid engaged in another all-out assault on the filibuster, but he settled for an agreement where certain appointments would get confirmed and others would be taken off the table — but, most importantly, where the filibuster would remain untouched!

By reaching the deal, Republicans have averted a parliamentary precedent that would have allowed:

The downside is that Harry Reid has now demonstrated that he can get what he wants by threatening to use the “nuclear option” to blow up the Senate as an institution. We expect him to drag out this threat again and again and again.

Once you have made it clear that you are willing to break the rules in order to win, the rules are meaningless.

So it is with some alarm that we note that Harry Reid — in an exercise of raw power — intends within the next week to try to openly break the Senate rules in order to confirm all pending Executive Branch nominees.

You may remember that, at the beginning of the year, Reid made the specious argument that you could change the rules at the beginning of a two-year congressional session — and only at the beginning of the congressional session.

Well, we are no longer at the start of the term.

A quarter of the 113th Congress had now come and gone. And even the pseudo-intellectual arguments for obliterating the Senate rules are gone.

This is an exercise in raw political power. This is an effort by Reid to say: “I can cheat whenever I want. And no one can stop me.”

The first showdown case will occur over efforts to fill the National Labor Relations Board. You may remember that Obama was slapped down by the courts for appointing these “members” as “recess appointments” when Congress wasn’t in recess.

Now, having been caught cheating, Obama and Reid are threatening to tip over the chess board in order to confirm these illegal “recess appointments.”

But that’s just the beginning.

Once it is impossible to filibuster Executive Branch appointments, Obama will soon carry through on his word to slam through a rabidly anti-gun zealot to head the ATF.

And does anyone think that the Senate would comply with the niceties of the rules it has obliterated — if what was at stake was an anti-gun zealot nominated to the Supreme Court in order to overturn the Heller and McDonald decisions?

Finally, it is just not credible for Reid to say: “I’m going to cheat. But I’m going to define the way in which I cheat to limit my cheating to this narrow way.”

If the Senate’s filibuster rules are obliterated, you can be sure that the Toomey-Manchin amendment — with its universal gun registries — would soon be brought up again and passed.

Gun owners should realize that the Feinstein gun and magazine bans lost by such a large margin only because a lot of anti-gun senators knew they would not muster the 60 votes needed. If there were a 50-vote margin — and their votes made a difference — many of these anti-gunners would switch their votes and pass Feinstein.

So the reason gun control did not pass is because the Senate rules allowing us to filibuster it. They may seem dry and boring, but the question of whether we win or lose will depend on them.

ACTION: Contact Your Senator. Tell him to oppose Harry Reid’s “cheat scheme” to violate the Senate rules in order to change the Senate rules.

Devastating Democrats in this quirky and sarcastic political blog about the state of our world today, the hyperbole of liberal liars, and the rise of a President who will (eventually) Make America Great Again.